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Throwing Like a Girl: Is Biology Allowed to Explain Anything?

Fausto-Sterling is not an incidental figure in modern debates about sex. Her famous 1993 essay The Five Sexes helped popularize the idea that the familiar male-female binary is biologically inadequate. She proposed additional “sexes” based on intersex conditions and argued more broadly that sex should be understood as a continuum.

Those arguments became enormously influential. In our view, they also created lasting confusion by encouraging people to mistake variation in sexual development for evidence that biological sex itself is not binary. But when it comes to sexual reproduction, the distinction is straightforward: females are organized around producing ova and males around producing sperm. There is no third gamete type or reproductive role, and intersex conditions do not create one.

One of us has examined these arguments in an essay for Skeptic. Other evolutionary biologists, including Colin Wright, have also offered detailed treatments of the issue.

Early Evolution of Life: Publication in Science Advances

Because an organism isn’t truly “alive” in the biological sense until it can survive as an autonomous, free-living cell, the researchers reached a radical conclusion.

How and where did the first forms of life arise? These are the main questions driving research at the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU). In a new publication in Science Advances, an international team led by Düsseldorf biologists uncovers pioneering insights into the network of chemical reactions that the very first cells used to make the building blocks of life and which sources of energy they used to drive those reactions. They retraced the origin of enzymes during life’s earliest divergence into bacteria and archaea, and found evidence for two independent origins of life for free-living cells.

Astronomers pin down the origins of a planetary odd couple

In a study appearing today in Astrophysical Journal Letters, the scientists report on new measurements of the mini-Neptune’s atmosphere, made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is the first time astronomers have measured the composition of a mini-Neptune that resides inside the orbit of a hot Jupiter.

Their measurements reveal that the smaller planet has a “heavy” atmosphere that is rich with water vapor, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and hints of methane. Such a heavy atmosphere would not have been acquired by the planet if it had formed in its current location, very close to its star.

Instead, the scientists say their findings point to an alternate origin story: Both the mini-Neptune and the hot Jupiter may have formed much farther away, in the colder region of the protoplanetary disk. There, the planets could slowly build up atmospheres of ice and other volatiles. Over time, the planets were likely drawn in toward the star in a gradual process that kept them close, with their atmospheres intact.

INTerpath001 Trial: Personalized mRNA Cancer Vaccine for Melanoma

The positive Phase 3 result therefore provides clinical validation, at the level of RFS and DMFS, of a strategy combining individualized neoantigen-directed immunotherapy with established PD-1 blockade.

It is important, however, not to extend the current findings beyond what the trial has demonstrated.

INTerpath-001 establishes efficacy endpoints in resected high-risk cutaneous melanoma. It does not yet establish that the same approach will be effective across other tumor types, nor does the currently available topline information identify which molecular or immunological characteristics predict benefit from the individualized therapy.

D2D Satellite Connectivity: The 16-Point Performance Gap Buyers Are Ignoring

A global survey of 600 IoT decision-makers found that 91% plan to adopt direct-to-device (D2D) satellite connectivity within 18 months. But organizations already blending satellite and cellular report increased progress at a rate 16 points higher than terrestrial-only users, 86% versus 70%. The gap already exists. Most buyers are still treating adoption as a future decision rather than a current one.

D2D satellite connectivity is heading toward near-universal adoption on paper, but the buyers who already made the move are quietly pulling ahead of everyone still planning to. Viasat and Vanson Bourne surveyed 600 IoT decision-makers across agriculture, energy, transport and logistics, mining, and utilities, and found that organizations blending satellite and cellular connectivity report increased progress at 86%, compared with 70% for organizations relying on terrestrial-only networks, according to IoT Tech News’ coverage of the report.

The headline figure from the Viasat-commissioned study, conducted by Vanson Bourne, is that 91% of decision-makers plan to adopt D2D IoT devices within 18 months, with 69% planning adoption within 12 months and 32% within just six, according to Viasat’s own release. That number is genuinely significant. D2D satellite connectivity, enabled by 3GPP’s Release 17 standard for narrowband non-terrestrial networks, lets a device with a standard cellular chipset connect to satellite without a separate terminal, gateway, or bespoke hardware, removing what used to be the single biggest cost barrier to satellite IoT.

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